


beauty in the breakdown

by neytirijade



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Love Triangles, Resolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 09:35:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15771438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neytirijade/pseuds/neytirijade
Summary: Mulder tries pushing Scully away to protect her. Scully doesn't give up that easily.





	1. Chapter 1

Scully breathes a sigh as she steps off the elevator into the basement. Thirty minutes into a mandatory forensics seminar with no sign of Mulder, and for the most part, she's so damn frustrated with him and his behavior lately that she doesn't feel like going off in search for her missing partner. However, when Kersh pulled her aside and asked about Mulder's whereabouts, she figured she might as well give it a try and keep him out of the way of their boss's rage once again.

They've only just gotten the X Files back, but stepping back into the basement gives her a wash of comfortable familiarity. She longs for the earlier days, before she was taken, when Mulder was still a relative gentlemen, when she was blissfully ignorant to her feelings for him. But she can't go back in time-- she must deal with the here and now.

Later, she'll wish she'd paid more attention. She will wonder why she didn't hear the heavy breaths, the gentle squeak of the office's desk over the click of her heels against the same floor. She'll wish she never knew, and could go on thinking Mulder had just been out of sorts since the ordeal in Antarctica and everything that surrounded the event.

But she doesn't know, she's too far gone in her head, and when she sees the source of the noises that her brain had tried to conceal from her understanding, right through the open door of the basement office, Scully nearly drops to the floor.

She's able to whip around and hide behind the wall before either of them see or hear her. For a moment, all she hears is her pounding heart, quick breaths, and the sickening noises from inside the office.

"God, yes, Fox, I love you," the other woman moans loudly. There's a shushing noise.

"Quiet, Diana."

At the sound of his voice, lathed in pleasure, Scully feels her heart stop. She takes off her heels so they don't hear her, and can barely stay on her feet as she runs back to the elevator.

She gets all the way to her car. Checks the mirror, turns the engine on. Clicks her seatbelt into its lock and ignores the trembling of her fingers as she straps the belt over her.

Scully makes it to her apartment, closes the door, and cries so hard she pulls the breath from her lungs.


	2. Chapter 2

She can remember, her third year of college, calling in sick during an exam because she caught her boyfriend of eighteen months, Richard, cheating on her. Scully had been so heartbroken that it wasn’t she herself who called in sick, it was her roommate Cheri, because Scully could barely pause long enough to take a breath in between heartbroken cries. She promised herself, after that day, that she’d never let a boy do that to her again.

She breaks that promise.

Instead of waiting for the next day, she calls Skinner at 6:15 in the evening. He questions her, but she refuses to explain her upcoming absence, and she does not tell him how long she will be gone.

Part of her despises the mess she allows herself to become. But she doesn’t cry, not after the tears that lasted nearly an hour when she first arrived at her apartment. She doesn’t watch TV, doesn’t read; Scully sits, alone, angry at herself for calling into work and allowing her feelings to overcome her this severely. She finally falls asleep in the early morning hours.

When she dreams, she sees Mulder. And Diana. Mulder tells her she’s kidding herself; he never loved her, how could he? They’re nothing alike. He loves Diana. He laughs at her when she tells him she loves him.

She wakes, tears drying on her cheeks, to the ringing of her cell phone. Her alarm clock reads 11:46 AM. Scully can’t remember the last time she slept that late. She flips the cover of her cell phone, checks the caller ID.

Fuck you, Mulder, she wants to answer the phone, growl into the speaker. But she just presses the power button, watches it shut off, and rolls over on her couch to fall back into an angry sleep.

#

The office is stagnant, cool in its emptiness. With no open cases, no paperwork to be done, and no Scully, Mulder flicks pencils at the ceiling.

He’s perturbed. Scully’s skipping school, so to speak, and she won’t answer her phone. He plans to stop at her apartment later, but he waits for the day to end before making the drive to Georgetown.

Finally, 5 o’clock rolls around, and Mulder nearly runs straight into Diana as he’s leaving the basement office.

“Diana,” he says, startled. She smirks at him.

“Going somewhere?”

Mulder blanches. Since he and Diana had started sleeping together again, she’d inserted herself into his life in ways he wasn’t exactly okay with. Prying into his life, especially when it came to Scully, was included in that.

“I’m leaving, Diana,” he replies. “It’s the end of the day, when most people leave work to go home.”

“And is that where you’re going?” she asks him. “Home?”

Mulder doesn’t answer. He turns on his heel to twist his key into the office door and click the lock into place. “I’ll see you later,” he says in her direction, and walks away before she gets the chance to pull him back.

On the drive to Georgetown, Mulder considers his current predicament. He’s not sleeping with Diana because he wants to be with her, and he knows maybe it isn’t fair to her, though part of him doesn’t care. Speaking of fairness, a hot pit of guilt bleeds into his stomach when he thinks of Scully. His anger is misplaced when he fucks Diana and he knows it. After the intimate moment between him and Scully in the hallway of his apartment over the summer, he backs himself into a corner and away from her, toward Diana, in fear. He’s a fucking coward.

#

Scully pours another mixture of schnapps and juice. The alcohol sloshes in the glass as she stumbles back to the place between her couch and table. She staggers into a sitting position, crossing her legs in front of her, and returns to the medical journal she’s been looking at (but not reading).

Her doorbell rings. She sighs, and her eyes close in dread, knowing exactly who’s on the other side of the door.

After a few moments, he begins pounding. “Scully. Scully, it’s me.”

She heaves herself off the floor, downing the rest of her schnapps, and on the way to the front door she grabs the entire bottle and flicks off the cap.

When Scully opens the door, she has the urge to slap Mulder hard across the face. She doesn’t. Instead, she leaves the door open and walks back to her coffee table.

A few moments pass. “Should I ask?”

“Nope,” she replies.

He enters her apartment and closes her door lightly, stepping closer to her as he watches her gulp down the alcohol in the amber bottle. “Scully. Talk to me.”

“I have nothing to say to you, Mulder.”

He’s stricken. His mind flicks over the past couple of days, trying to pinpoint an exact conversation, an exact moment that she could possibly be stewing over. He comes up short.

Mulder sits carefully on the end of her couch, watching Scully carefully. “Throw me a bone, here, Scully. What is it?”

“Shouldn’t you have one to throw Diana?”

His mouth falls open. “W-what?”

Scully shoves the medical journal back onto the table and stands. “Don’t fucking play dumb with me, Mulder. I saw you.” She sways lightly on her feet.

He feels the blood drain from his face and tries to continue to play dumb. “You saw what, Scully?”

She doesn’t answer, just sets her jaw and walks to the kitchen. He follows.

“Saw what, Scully?”

“You, fucking the enemy in our office. On our desk.” She tosses her empty bottle of schnapps into the sink and goes into the freezer to grab another bottle. Vodka, this time.

Stunned, Mulder can’t figure out what to say in reply. Now it makes sense. But instead of offering words of comfort, he gets defensive.

“It’s not our desk.”

She scoffs, takes a sip of vodka straight out of the bottle. “What the fuck ever, Mulder. That doesn’t change anything.”

“I told you not to make this personal,” Mulder watches the vodka ripple inside the glass. He feels the acid of the words and can’t stop himself. “That includes getting jealous.”

When Scully turns around, she’s seething. He’s afraid the bottle in her hand might end up over his head at the look on her face. But she seems to take a breath, albeit shuddering when she does, and walk away to pick up her empty glass from the coffee table.

Neither of them speaks again until she gets back to the kitchen. Mulder can’t stop himself from spilling over, and his instinct to protect himself, to protect her by hurting her, overpowers any feelings of affection he has for her.

“Scully why are you jealous of Diana?”

“Because I’m—” there goes her glass, thrown hard and shattering into the sink— “fucking in love with you, that’s why!”

She stands with her arms holding her up at the kitchen sink, breathing hard. Mulder doesn’t move. He can’t believe she’s finally said it, but for him, that doesn’t change anything. It just hardens his resolve. He has to push her away before she gets hurt again.

“No, you’re not, Scully.”

She turns and steps into his personal space, and her height doesn’t lessen the intimidation of her stance. He wants to back up. “How the fuck would you know? How can you fucking stand there and tell me how the fuck I feel, Mulder? After everything we’ve been through? After what happened last summer after Dallas?”

He wants to tell her everything. He wants to brush away the angry tears rolling down her face, take her in his arms and tell her he loves her more than anything, he doesn’t give a flying fuck about Diana, and that he’s so happy she finally admitted to her feelings.

But instead: “Scully, I was only trying to keep you from leaving. But… Maybe I should have let you go.”

She’s quiet for a few moments, looking down at their feet. Then, she laughs, and it’s a harsh sound that sends a chill through him.

“You fucking coward.”

“What?”

“You’re gonna stand there and tell me there’s nothing between us?” She pries, and Mulder wishes she could read his mind, stop him from saying what he’s about to say.

“There’s nothing between us, Scully. If you have feelings for me… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lead you on. But I’m with Diana,” he tries. The words sound wrong in his head, and even worse when he says them. “I don’t feel the same way about you.”

“You should have just fucking left me in Antarctica.”

He doesn’t reply, and Scully stares at him for a long time. When she finally speaks again, she’s so quiet that he barely hears her.

“Get out.”

Mulder tries to bend down, his hands coming around her arms instinctively. “What?”

“GET OUT!” She screams at him, crying hot, heartbroken and furious tears, and shoves him against the door. “Get the fuck out, Mulder!”

He tells himself it’s for the better. He tells himself now she can move on and have a real life. It doesn’t change the pounding, sharp vice he feels around his chest as, stunned, he watches her cry.

Scully reaches around him and yanks her door open. “Get out,” she says, one last time. He obliges, and tries to ignore when her door slams behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

As he speeds toward Hegel Place, Mulder tries to rationalize. He’d chuckle at the irony—his partner is the rational one, not him—if he wasn’t trying to convince himself he did the right thing. The night is stagnant, and everything seems to scream at him.

She’s better off without me.

He thinks this, then remembers the tears on her face, the anger blossoming over her cheeks. His chest aches where he feels her phantom fists, and idly he wonders if that isn’t his heart.

His drive from Georgetown back to Alexandria is spent in a fog. When he swings open the door to his apartment, he fully plans to take the rest of the night to feel sorry for himself. Sorry for Scully, whose heart he can’t believe he just broke.

“Because I’m fucking in love with you, that’s why!”

The shatter of the glass echoes in his ears.

But as he steps further into his space, he realizes he’s not alone.

“Jesus. Diana, go home,” he says, and rubs a weary hand over his face.

She slinks up to him and smiles. “Come on, Fox. Can’t even say hi?” Her hands are pushing his coat off, slipping against the skin on his forearms. “I wanted to see you.”

After the atrocity he committed at Scully’s apartment, he’s feeling much crueler than usual. He smacks her hands away. “Go away, Diana,” he spits.

Diana lets her hands fall to her sides. Silence passes over a few moments as her face hardens. “Let me guess. Agent Scully.”

Mulder treads heavily to his couch. “Don’t.”

“You know, I don’t understand why you string her along, Fox. Clearly, she’s in over her head, trying to labor for your attentions.” She sidles up to him, her hands awkward and claw-like against him. “Really, it’s just sad she thinks she can get between us.”

“Diana, I said get the fuck out.” His eyes are hard as he pushes her away for a second time. She startles at the volume in his voice. “And I don’t care what the facts are, don’t you dare talk about her like that. Or at all, as a matter of fact.”

She stares at him as the pieces click into place. “Jesus Christ, you’re in love with her?”

Mulder chuckles humorlessly. “Why does it matter to you? You really think this—between us—is actually going anywhere? Is anything more than me needing somebody to fuck the anger and self-pity out of me?”

“Don’t try to hurt me just because you can’t get your feelings in order,” she states, and backs up from the couch. “Do you really think you’d be happy with her, Fox? What if you—God forbid—wanted children one day? She can’t give you that. All she does is make you doubt everything. She hinders you so badly, Fox. I’ve seen it.”

He shoves the coffee table as he stands, causing the wood of its legs and the wood of the floor to shriek in protest. “I said don’t fucking talk about her like that. Go. Now.”

He knows what she’s doing. She thinks if she gets him angry enough, he’ll shove her against the wall and fuck her in a rage, in a passion their previous relationship never conceived of. But he can’t stop thinking about Scully, and what transpired less than an hour ago in her apartment.

Diana stares at him for a couple of long moments before turning toward the door.

“And Diana? I will never, ever love you like I love her. So don’t come back.”

She doesn’t stop or acknowledge his words at all. When the door shuts, he slinks back onto the couch, Scully’s words earlier weighing him down more than Diana’s bullshit ever could. She admitted she was in love with him, finally, and he threw it back in her face.

What have I done?

#

Scully takes another personal day to nurse her hangover. The entirety of the day is spent mostly cleaning up her kitchen and finishing a case report. She locks up the rest of her vodka and makes a promise to herself not to touch it again for a long time.

The night before, she drunkenly nurtured her broken heart. She lay on the floor in front of her couch with a pillow clutched to her chest and even pulled out a year-old pack of cigarettes that she hadn’t touched in months.

Today, she’d fully expected to do the same, albeit sober. It took her maybe half an hour to decide what she’d do about this, about the events that transpired the night before. She realized what Mulder was doing, attempting to push her away to keep her safe. But she was too deep in this now, and she wasn’t going to give up. The empty pad of paper she’d pulled out to write her resignation letter went back in the desk drawer, and she fully prepared herself for what was to come.

If Mulder wanted to push her away, he was going to fail. She fucking hated him, so much so that she could hardly bear the energy to even think about how she would play this. But she loved him, and she knew, even though his words the previous night tried to convince her otherwise, that that love was not unrequited. Scully wasn’t about to give up without a fight.

#

Like everything significant that occurs between them, the incident in Scully’s apartment goes unspoken.

Mulder is surprised to see her back at the office two days later, slipping her signed off case report into the file box. She bids him good morning and acts no different than what he expects.

She does well until Phillip Padgett digs his small claws into her psyche, leaving her bleeding and exposed (in more ways than one) on the floor of Mulder’s apartment. In his arms, she feels vulnerable, touch starved, and begging him without words for something, for anything.

She opts to stay in his apartment, helps him clean up the blood that seeped into his carpet. Brokenly, she apologizes for the stains, and the bullet holes in his ceiling.

On Mulder’s part, he tries to hold her at arm’s length, figuratively. But the confidence and steely reason in her posture is rattled, and it chills him to see her so shaken. He steeps tea for them both, gives her a t-shirt of his and a pair of leggings she’d forgotten she left at his apartment.

They sip the tea in silence for a while, and Mulder tries to straighten up his living room. It doesn’t feel right to have her here among his questionable living conditions, not when she’s cowered against the arm of the couch, legs tucked against her chest, and looking so much the mess that adorns his desk and couch.

“It’s funny,” she begins, tracing a finger around the edge of her mug. “That he tried to tell you something you didn’t already know.”

Mulder doesn’t understand for a moment, and looks at her questioningly. She doesn’t meet his eyes, and his heart pounds as he remembers:

“Agent Scully is already in love.”

“It would be embarrassing if we hadn’t already done this before,” she says, and laughs mirthlessly. “God, I’m pathetic.”

“Scully.” He starts, but he doesn’t know how to continue.

“I wonder if he knew how hopeless it was for me to love you.”

She’s baiting him, waiting for him to tell her otherwise. But he takes the coward’s way out.

“I’m sorry, Dana.”

“Me, too,” she says into her mug. “But only because you won’t fucking admit it to me or yourself.”

Scully gets up from her spot on the couch and takes her mug to the sink before retreating to his room, where he offered her to sleep for the night. He doesn’t know how to reply to her, so he lets her go, and hangs his head against his fists.

#

When they almost lose each other again, this time to mycological occurrence in the mountains of North Carolina, it finally begins to dawn on Mulder how much he needs her.

He knows, even in this stalemate they’ve sluggishly waded through for almost seven years, that she’s his soulmate. Once, a woman with multiple traumas and more than one person living in her head told him they were soulmates in past lives. In his recollected reincarnations, he always found Scully by his side but never belonging to him. At the time, this wavered his convictions toward what he felt for her. All he knew was Scully was meant to be by his side.

It isn’t until, a few weeks after their trip in and out of each other’s consciousness and a brain surgery that leaves him needy, he fully realizes: Melissa Ephesian was wrong.

#

She is afraid to touch him, as if he’ll disappear under her gentle touch. He admits his love for her, finally—finally—by telling her she’s his best friend. His touchstone. Mulder awes of her, crying for the death of a woman she’d probably have killed herself if given the chance. She almost kisses him but thinks better of it. He wishes he would have had the courage to do it himself. But he realizes, a few hours after his dazed confession, that she’s waiting for him. Instead of waiting for her to return, he pulls his cellphone from the nightstand and hits the speed dial, sitting tensely on his bed.

She answers tiredly. “Scully.”

“I’m sorry.”

There’s silence on the other line for a moment. “For what, Mulder?”

“For what I said to you that night. In your apartment.”

He feels her nod, absorbing his words in quiet. When she doesn’t speak, he continues: “You know I was full of shit, right?”

“I… suspected as much, yes,” he hears her sigh.

“Is that why you stayed?”

“That’s part of the reason. I hoped more than anything that you’d finally get your head out of your ass if given some time.”

He laughs at that. “Yeah, well. As always, you were right, Scully.”

They’re both quiet for a few moments when he speaks again. “You know what I meant today, right? You know I love you?”

“I deduced that from what you told me, yeah,” she breathes nervously into the phone. “You broke my heart that night, you know.”

A throb of pain shoots through his stomach. He closes his eyes. “I know. I know, Scully. I’m sorry.”

Silence, again, as he hears some shifting on the other end of the phone. “What are you doing right now?” He asks.

“Touching myself.”

A beat. She laughs.

“I had you.”

Mulder chuckles into the phone, rubbing a hand over his face. “Jesus, Scully. Way to get my hopes up.”

“Well, Mulder, if you play your cards right, your hopes will almost certainly be fulfilled.”

“Yeah?” He smiles.

“Yeah. But you’re not off the hook for being an asshole, you know. You’re gonna have to work for that one.”

“I know, Scully. I’m a damn coward, and a dick, and I most certainly don’t deserve you.”

“Mm. How are you feeling?”

He sighs, relief and admiration poring through his veins. He lies back on the bed. “I’m not bad. I might have to re-try some of those painkillers in a bit.”

“Don’t forget the antibiotics, to stave off infection.”

“Yes, Dr. Scully.”

“I’m gonna go to bed. Will you be alright tonight?”

“I think I can manage. Unless you feel like coming over to play doctor for me?” He smirks, and he can nearly hear her roll her eyes.

“Maybe another time. Goodnight, Mulder.”

“Goodnight, Scully.”

“Oh, and Mulder?”

“Yeah?”

“In case you needed to hear it again…. I love you, too. Also, you’re a jerk.”

He laughs as she hangs up.

#

The following weeks were spent in nervous anticipation. Mulder recovers nicely but Scully’s worrying over him doesn’t dissipate. The weekend before the new millennium, he convinces her to go to a party at the Lone Gunmen’s.

When she shows up, the place is in full party mode. The Gunmen’s lair is transformed into a sort of underground rave, LED laser lights flashing and a heavy bass churning out Metallica in the midst of a crowd of colorful partygoers. Scully went searching for her ‘coolest’ possible outfit, but all she came up with were a pair of dark jeans, a black cashmere sweater, and black combat boots. Her outfit was chosen with the party in mind—she figured she might blend in a little better with a more punk rock look to her attire—and the skin-tightness of her sweater and jeans were picked out for another reason. She hadn’t expected to want to finally seduce Mulder on this specific night, but she figured it’d at least be an opportunity to make him swoon.

Mulder is at the back, teasing Frohike in a highly energetic game of beer pong. Scully wades through the onlookers to watch.

“Oh, come on, Melvin, that was a foul!” He laughs, picking up his ping pong ball. When he tosses it and lands into the beer cup on the other side of the table, he cheers at his win, and reaches for his drink—Scully gets to it first.

When he turns to look at her, she raises the cup to her lips and gives him a look that makes his knees weak and his cock begin to stir. She plays coy.

“Am I interrupting?” She asks, a smirk to her face.

“Not at all, Scully,” he says. The Gunmen greet her, and Mulder taps out to let Langly continue the game. He takes Scully by the hand and pulls her into the corner, where the lights don’t quite reach.

He bends down, his hands on her waist: “Are you trying to kill me right now, Scully?” he whispers against her skin, his lips brushing just below her ear.

She smiles. “No, but the night’s not over yet,” she says, her voice loud over the music but low in octave. He wonders how he’ll get through the night.

#

It’s well after midnight, and Mulder and Scully sit talking with several friends of the Gunmen’s. They’re up on the roof, enjoying the brisk air of the night. Scully, having had a few beers, is feeling tipsy and affectionate, and her thighs are spread over Mulder’s as she lies back against the armrest of the haphazard loveseat that sits on the cement.

JoJo, a girl with a nose ring and pink, spiky hair, brings a plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies into the circle. The cookies are nearly decimated before she sets the plate down, but after the initial frenzy, a few of the pastries still sit abandoned on the china. Mulder sees Scully eye the plate.

“Did you want a cookie?” Mulder asks her, squeezing her thigh. When she hums a yes, he swipes the baked good from the plate and takes a bite.

“Mulder!” She smacks him playfully. He laughs, but hands over the cookie.

“Thank you,” she tells him.

“Only for my girl,” he replies, and stiffens slightly before looking over to gauge her reaction. Scully just smiles and takes a delicate bite.

#

She and Mulder split a second cookie, and Scully half-listens to him talk conspiracy theories to the small group of people. Langly and Byers appear, throwing their two cents out about some ‘alien baby’ in Russia named Aleshenka. Scully listens to the story and scoffs.

Mulder turns to her, wiggling her leg. “Tell us your theory, Scully,” he says. Normally, she’d think he was trying to push her buttons, asking her for her opinion when in reality he was dreading it. But she’s learning slowly that, no matter how ridiculous his theories are, and no matter how much she tries to rebuff them, he always wants to hear her side of things.

“Sounds to me it was an underdeveloped fetus,” she explains. “And the woman was probably very, very ill.”

She listens to the countertheories, forming other arguments in her head, but instead leans further into Mulder’s side. She begins to hone in on another conversation between JoJo, the pink-haired rocker, and Langly.

“We made those special! How come nobody saved us any?” Langly complained.

“Sorry, dude. Your friends over there had a couple, too.” JoJo shrugged.

Langly glances over to Mulder and Scully. “Hey, uh… you guys didn’t happen to have those chocolate cookies JoJo brought out, did you?”

“We did, though Scully kinda scarfed most of them down,” Mulder says, and flinches when Scully swats at him.

Byers and Langly share a look.

“What?” Mulder asks, oblivious.

“Um… there might have been a, uh…. Significant amount of marijuana in those cookies,” Byers offers.

There’s silence from the loveseat for a few seconds. Scully giggles.

“Oh my god, that explains a lot,” she laughs and covers her face with her hands.

“Oh no, G-woman is baked,” Langly says.

Mulder looks over at Scully, clearly amused. She looks up. “Oh my god, we’re fucked if they drug test us soon, Mulder.”

#

They’re standing off near the edge of the roof, watching some partygoers ignite firecrackers and sparklers, bright against the dark chill of night. Mulder leans back against the roof access door, watching Scully inspect her sparkler with a sense of wonder. She pouts as it fizzles out, but then throws out the used firework and looks up, in search of him.

Mulder watches her as she makes her way through the handful of people and explosives and thinks her a mythological creature; the lights of the fireworks dancing off her face to cast her in a light ethereal. He is damn lucky, is what he is.

When she reaches him, her arms slide around his waist, and she rubs her cheek against the warmth of his pectorals. She sighs contentedly into his shirt, and he wraps his arms around her, marveling at the petite, pixie-like stature of her, devoid of high heels other than the small inch of height in her boots. He dances fingers over her spine and she shivers.

“Cold?” He asks, a whisper against the blood of her hair.

She shakes her head. “No. Yes. I—” she sighs again, her face against the stony muscle of his chest. “I forgot how pot can make me feel,” she says.

“And how’s that?”

“Makes me sensitive,” she admits. Laughs as she says: “Horny.”

If he didn’t have another reason to want to take her home, that would be it. “Fuck, Scully.” She laughs. “Let me… Shit, I’ll take you home, Scully, and I’ll go back to my apartment. If you want.” He pulls away from her, only to take her face in his hands. “But I’ve got to fucking kiss you right now.”

Her eyes sparkle and her tongue darts out to wet her lips. It’s there, almost in a public area, people celebrating no less than ten feet away, that, on a chilly night among the stars—on the roof of the Gunmen’s lair, both high on illicit substances and on each other—he finally kisses her for the first time.


	4. Chapter 4

Kissing her is astronomical in the way a universe is birthed, her soft lips and tongue and teeth providing answers to questions Mulder had never once considered. She melts in his hands, dipping her body up and against him as his hands edge over the cashmere stretched over her waist. He’s never been with a woman so small, and something about it thrills him as he’s able to slip his thumbs to her front, each side of her ribcage tiny in his hands. He slinks down to meet her better, leaning against the cement wall behind him and flexing his thighs for leverage. He could get lost in the soft dip of her tongue against his, the gentle scratching of her nails through his scalp.

Scully pulls back just enough for them to catch their breath, her lips still whisper-like against his. The blue of her eyes traps him as his hands settle on her waist.

Before either of them can speak, however, there’s a low whistle off to their right.

“Geez, you two. If you need a bedroom, I think Byers’ is currently unoccupied,” Frohike smirks at them from around the corner as he pops open a couple of beers.

Mulder is surprised when Scully doesn’t pull away. She actually lets out a light giggle, the high she’s floated on making her lightheaded. Instead she only blushes and straightens up, turning to their intruder.

“I hope you interrupted us to hand over some provisions, Frohike, or I’m going to have to go find where I locked up my clip,” she quips at him.

Frohike throws his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, yeah, lovebirds, I come bearing alcohol,” he says, handing two of the beers over to Mulder and Scully. “But the offer for the room still stands, whether you two are looking for privacy or not– don’t want you driving in your condition.”

Scully takes a generous sip of her beer before walking to Frohike. “Thank you, Melvin,” she says, giving him a light kiss on the cheek. 

He stutters. “Yes, well. Come on, you guys have plenty of time to neck later. Come join the party.”

#

It gets late with a chill in the air reserved for the early morning hours. Most of the partygoers had either passed out downstairs or went on their own ways, grabbing taxis and carpooling to stay on the safe side. Before long, it’s the original five left– and even Frohike and Langly tap out soon and decide to head downstairs. Mulder and Scully opt to stay up on the roof, and Byers excuses himself once he’s left alone with the pair.

“There’s a, uh… Pull-out matress in that couch,” he says to them. If he was able to blush, he would be. “There’s pillows and blankets downstairs if you’d like.”

Mulder nods and gives Scully’s thigh a squeeze. “I’ll be right back,” he says. He leaves her with a look of promise that makes her lips dry and her panties wet.

While he’s gone, Scully pushes the makeshift coffee table and several lawn chairs off to the side to spread out the extending mattress. It squeaks as she pulls the metal springs and gives a bit of struggle, but after a few moments of pulling hard she’s finally able to smooth the bed down to the concrete.

Scully takes a shuddering inhale, nervous energy siding with the arousal she’s felt the majority of the night, and lays down flat on the bed, pulling her feet up to rest on the metal framing. The marijuana cookies she had unknowingly consumed earlier helped ease some of her anxiety, but this was Mulder. What was to happen tonight would set the course of their relationship. This was no simple, ordinary night. This was everything. And while Mulder’s words and actions had begun to finally give voice to how he felt, she still had fears that he was telling her only what she wanted to hear. She knew, deep down, that it was silly. He loves her… Right?

When Mulder returns, his arms full of pillows, a fluffy down comforter and a fleece throw blanket, he pauses for a few moments to watch the woman in front of him. Scully was stretched out along the queen size mattress, her knees propped up against the side of the frame and one arm bent to rest under her head. He quietly approaches her and sets the bedding down at the head of the mattress.

He steps around the bed to where her feet rest, and, placing one hand on her knee, he leans over her to brush a few stray tendrils of red from her flushed cheek. 

“You are a goddess, do you know that?” He whispers, afraid to speak too loud in case he breaks the spell or wakes from the dream he’s convinced this is. She smiles softly at him, but there’s a sadness in her expression. Slowly, she sits up, her hand coming to pull his down into her lap.

Mulder sits beside her, his hand coming to rest against her thigh. “What’s wrong, Scully?" 

She doesn’t answer him, she doesn’t yet know how to voice the turmoil in her head. Instead, she looks down at his hand, moving her own fingers over his knuckles. After a few moments, he reaches under her chin to tip her eyes back up at him.

"If you’re having doubts, Scully, we don’t have to do this,” he tells her, his fingers playing softly over her jaw. “Just say the word. We can lie down and sleep, or I’ll call you a cab to take you home.”

“Is that what you want?” She whispers, her gaze unnerved.

“I- Scully…” He takes a deep breath, ponders his next words. “No, Scully. I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want to just lie down and sleep, although I’d cherish it for the rest of my life if you let me hold you all night. But what I want, right now… I want nothing more than to lay you down and make love to you until the sun comes up.”

Scully blinks, and a tear drips from her eyelash. “I can’t help but still be afraid of what you said that night, in my apartment,” her voice quivers. “When you tried to convince me you didn’t love me.”

“Oh, Dana,” he says. The use of her first name warms and chills her at the same time. His hands cup each side of her face. “I will never regret anything more than what I said to you that night,” he admits. “I’m so sorry I hurt you that way. In all fairness, you shouldn’t forgive me for that.”

They’re quiet for a moment. Mulder brushes her cheeks dry, and his thumbs graze over her lips, much like she did just weeks earlier in the door of his apartment. 

“Scully… I will promise you, here and now, that that will never, ever happen again. None of it.” He takes a deep breath, leaning more toward her. 

“I was scared, Scully. I was scared to be with you, because I thought it would risk everything else. Our work, the X Files, each other. But it took me seven years to realize how much I wanted to risk everything. How much I fucking love you, and the fact that everything… That you *are* everything.”

Her hands come up to wind around his wrists, and she sniffs lightly as he brushes another tear from her face. Her gaze sees into him, through him, and takes his breath away.

“Show me,” she breathes, a gentle breath against his fingers.

He sweeps away the last of the dampness on her cheeks, lifts her chin, and he kisses her deeply with everything he has. All of the love, fear, grief, joy and anguish of his life, he presses into the softness of her lips. 

Suddenly, she rises to her feet, breaking the kiss and pulling her hands from his. She looks down at him and her eyes sparkle with affection and arousal. Reaching out, she takes both his hands in hers, and he sucks in a breath. Her gaze unwavering, she slips his hands under the cashmere of her sweater to rest along her belly and hips, and it’s now her who inhales sharply.

“Mulder,” she says, pure want heavy in her voice. “Mulder.”

He moves forward then, tipping her chin toward the sky once more, and his teeth bear down gentle on the spot where her jaw meets her throat. He tastes her, and smiles when the moan that escapes her throat vibrates against his lips. His hands roam gently over the heat of her skin, leaving her shivering in anticipation. His fingers slow over the barely healed wound of her gunshot scar.

Without a word, Mulder leaves a gentle kiss against the heavy pulse in her throat and begins to lift her sweater. At her nod, he eases the cashmere over her head, and she shivers when the night air breezes over the flush on her skin.

He pauses, leaning back slightly to trail his eyes over her body. He’s achingly hard in his jeans, but his hands are still slow over her waist. She savors the way his eyes and his touch envelops her, and the difference in their sizes makes her shudder again in his hands, large and warm against her skin.

Mulder’s fingers trace over the healed wound marring her skin. Softly, his mouth comes down on the abraded skin, as if his kiss could heal the scarred over dermis of her ribcage. Her breath comes in a shaky inhale, a gasp barely audible over the sounds of the never-sleeping city.

His mouth grazes over her belly, leaving a slight trail of saliva that cools her skin, and once more, a shiver runs through her bones. He looks up.

“Cold?” He asks, smiling lightly up at her.

Scully leans into him. “A little. ’S not the reason I’m shaking, though,” she admits, a blush coloring her cheeks and chest.

At that, Mulder slips his arms tight around her waist, his body heat electrifying her nerves. They stay there for a moment.

“My God, Scully. My God, how I love you.”

She exhales, a breathy huff of laughter escaping her throat. “Come on then, G-man,” she says, and her voice is throaty, coated in a haze of arousal he’d willingly listen to for the rest of his life. He smirks at her challengingly, and suddenly grabs her by the waist and flips her onto her back on the mattress. She lets out a girlish yelp, but he swallows it as his needy, open mouth teases over hers.

He pulls back and she moans at the loss. Chuckling, he kicks off his shoes and sits on his haunches, bringing her own feet up aside his hips to loosen her boots.

“Did I tell you how fucking sexy you looked all night, Scully?” Stripping off her boots, his hands wrap around her ankles and begin a slow trail up the inside of her thighs, splayed out before him, as he stares her down.

“You… May have mentioned it once or twice,” she replies, her thigh muscles clenching in his hands. 

He leans over her, his breath humid and burning against her ear as he peels her socks from her feet, and his weight atop her makes her moan. “You know how badly I wanted to take you up against that wall, spread you over that beer pong table and fuck you until you screamed my name?”

Scully grips him with her thighs, another throaty moan escaping her. “Fuck, Mulder,” she sighs against his body.

His hand slides up over her breasts, still covered in black lace, and he takes her jaw between his thumb and forefinger. “Tell me what you want, Scully,” he growls into her ear before nipping lightly at the lobe.

“T-touch me,” she stutters finally, breathless. “I want your mouth on me.”

Mulder is only too willing to comply, his mouth moving down her neck and over her chest, but she stops him.

He watches her, enraptured, as she pulls his t-shirt over his head and discards it somewhere on the cement. Her hands, though cool in the brisk air, heat highways and side roads along his chest, her nails scratching through the coarse hair on his breast bone. It’s enough to elicit an animalistic noise from the back of his throat; he twists a hand through her short fiery locks and shoves his mouth to hers. If Scully were to die by being devoured whole, she thinks this is how she’d want it.

Finally, he reaches behind her to undo the clasp of her bra, and as soon as it’s discarded with their t-shirts his hands slide down over her shoulders to grasp both breasts. She moans in his mouth and brings him back on top of her.

He wants to lave his tongue against her breasts for days, but he’s locked onto her scent– thick and heady, waiting to be consumed– so his ministrations against her breasts are short-lived. She protests, but his hands go to her hips and, without unbuttoning her jeans, he yanks them down over her thighs and discards those, too.

His hands move under both knees, pinning her legs against her as he trails his mouth over the insides of her thighs. She nearly bucks into his face as he gets closer.

The scent of her arousal sends him into overdrive, and Mulder all but rips her panties from her hips. He watches a string of her come cling to the lace, and he licks his lips.

With one arm still pinning her leg down against her, he reaches up to touch her mouth– his elbow hooking under her knee– and he dips a finger into the hot seam of her. Scully stifles a scream by biting the flesh of his thumb, and they both groan.

“God– damn,” the words vibrate in his chest as his fingers play in her drenched cunt. “Goddamn, Scully.”

She flexes her thigh against his bicep and arches against his fingers. “Mul- God, please,” she mewls, and both his hands are wet.

“What do you need, baby?” He says, teasing two fingertips at her entrance, watching both her face and the dazzling sight between her legs.

“Your- God, Mulder, your tongue,” Scully moans against his palm. “I want your tongue inside me.”

“Fuck,” he groans out to no one in particular, but he obliges and returns both hands to the backs of her thighs, spreading her open for him. She leans up a bit on her elbows to watch him.

His eyes lock onto hers as he kisses the outside of her lips, dragging his tongue through the wetness that has spread over her center. He’s teasing her.

“Mulderrrr,” she whines, she actually whines, and it’s a sound that goes straight to his dick, which couldn’t be harder if he tried. He laughs and, mid-chuckle, his tongue lands right in the center of her, seeping out on his tongue.

She calls out wordlessly, bucking against his tongue, and he accidentally hits his teeth against her flesh. But she doesn’t seem to mind, and her hands slide into his hair as he tastes her.

“Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” she trembles, and it causes her words to stutter in her mouth. Scully lets her upper body fall back onto the bed, mostly because she can’t hold herself up any longer. His tongue lathes in her essence, lapping the cream of her like a kitten drinking milk. 

“More,” she sighs, her body lust-shocked and electric.

Mulder dips his fingers down into her again, teasing her opening, watching her face from between her thighs as he touches her. The scratching of her nails against his scalp becomes urgent, and he thrusts three fingers, full, into her hot depths. 

She’s really trying hard to stay relatively quiet, but he isn’t making it very easy. She bites one of the pillows he brought upstairs, seeing stars in the sky and behind her eyelids.

His mouth descends on the livewire of her clit, and all thoughts of quiet flies out the window as she begins to come harder than she knew possible. 

Mulder grips her hips, holding her down as her body violently wracks with the force of her orgasm. A noise resembling a squeal erupts from deep inside her, and he feels the rumble in her muscles along with the trembling of her undoing. He smirks around her clit, hoping the Gunmen and whoever else is still downstairs still have the stereo going loud enough to drown out her cries.

When she comes down, after what feels like an eternity, she writhes under his touch as he laps up the remainders of her orgasm. He’s elated from watching her come, and the way her body trembles as he slides back up to see her face.

She’s shaking, her breath a staccato in her throat, and her eyes are still closed. Mulder thinks he’s never seen her so completely magnificent in his life. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her everywhere– her lips, her cheeks, her forehead. After a few minutes, she opens her eyes.

“God, Scully,” he breathes against her lips. “You have to let me do that every day from now on.”

Scully laughs breathlessly. “Mulder, if you do that to me every day, I’d probably end up in a wheelchair.”

He laughs, his eyes lighting up at her quip, at the view below him. He lets her catch her bearings, but she’s soon impatient, insistent, as her hands begin to unbuckle the belt at his hips.

When she gets his pants and boxers down, helping slip them from his ankles with her delicate feet, she sits up and pushes him to her side, on his back. She settles against his chest, on top of him, and seals his lips with hers, twisting her tongue hot and slick against his.

She reaches behind her and takes his hard, hot length in her hand.

“Jesus,” he moans into her mouth. She drags the tip of him through her soaked cunt. “Jesus fucking Christ, Scully.”

Then, she’s rising above him, lining his cock up with her entrance, and they both throw their heads back and moan as her pussy swallows his length.

“Oh, fuck,” he says. “Fuck, you’re so hot and tight, baby, you feel so good.” His hands grip her hips, plunging deeper into her slickness.

Scully cries out above him, and her pussy tightens around him. She smiles when he groans again, and she begins to ride him slow, driving him crazy when she gives a hard clench around his dick with each downstroke.

“Scully,” he admonishes, awestruck, “Scully.”

She ignores him, her ministrations speeding up ever so slightly. Her head is thrown back, exposing her neck to the moonlit night, but he still sees the upturn of her lips in a smirk.

“Scully.”

No response. She continues to ride him languoriously, light moans escaping her throat with each breath. She’s enjoying this.

“Scully, I swear to God–”

“Hm?” She lazily sits up, catches his eye. He growls.

In a second, she finds herself flipped back onto the bed, Mulder lifting her legs once more to pin against her body. He grips her throat and slams hard into her, and she yelps.

“Fucking- better listen to me when I’m talking to you, Dana,” he groans, his fingers squeezing lightly around her neck. 

“Oh, fuck,” she mewls against him, “yes, Mulder, God yes.”

“Yes, what? You want me to fuck you?” He punctuates with a bone-rattling thrust into her, whisper-groaning in her ear as he watches her face: “You want me to fuck you hard?" 

"Yes, please, yes.”

He repeats their position from earlier, hooking her leg over his elbow and grabbing her by the throat, and begins a shattering rhythm inside her. The couch-bed squeaks against the concrete at their fucking and Scully keens, her hand coming to rest over his on her throat.

He’s fucking her so hard her teeth rattle. His pubic bone is hitting her clit with each inside stroke, and he groans hard as he watches her wet her fingers and slip between their bodies to soak her clit.

“That’s it, Scully, touch yourself for me,” Mulder breathes in her ear, his thumb moving from around her throat to keep her head steady enough for him to watch her face as he fucks her. “I want to feel you cum around me, can you do that for me, Scully? Can you cum around my cock?”

She really does scream this time, and Mulder barely holds on long enough to finish watching her come before he breaks himself, spilling hot into her. He collapses, half on top of her, half on his side.

He wants to close his eyes, to roll over and sleep, but instead, he watches her. Her skin shines with sweat and lovemaking under the light of the waning moon and the sparse stars that litter the sky. His hand still strokes the side of her face, and she nuzzles his fingers in her post-sex haze. He was wrong when he thought her magnificent just a short time ago– now, she was beyond that, to the point where he didn’t have an adequate word to describe how beautiful she was. He thinks he could stare at her for the rest of his life.

“What?” She says after a few minutes, though she’d not opened her eyes.

Mulder just smiles. “You’re beautiful,” he blurts out, somewhat ridiculously.

She chuckles and finally turns toward him, opening her eyes, of which the darkened color nearly makes him gasp. Her irises are a striking midnight blue, lining her dilated pupils ethereal in the dim light of the night sky. 

“Exquisite,” he rewords. 

Her hand comes up to graze his jaw, fingers catching lightly on the day’s stubble. The midnight of her eyes shimmer at him. “Funny. That’s just what I was thinking.”


End file.
